3D PLM Enterprise Architecture

3D Visualization

Using the Visualization Manager

Attaching the visualization manager to and detaching it from documents and viewpoints
Use Case

Abstract

This article discusses the CAAVisManager use case. This use case explains how to create and implement a specific visualization interface for geometric components, how to make the visualization manager aware of this interface to display these components, and how to catch the visualization notification to manage the PSO and HSO contents. This article focuses on using the visualization manager.

What You Will Learn With This Use Case

The visualization manager is the unique instance of the CATVisManager class that manages the display of all the documents in all their windows. It is a key object in the visualization process that needs information about the documents to display, such as the document root object, the visualization interfaces that the document implements for 3D and 2D viewpoints, the selector to which visualization notifications must be sent, and the PSO (Prehighlighted Set of Objects) and HSO (Highlighted Set of Objects) associated with the document. With this use case, you will learn how to make the visualization manager aware of this information when a document is created or opened, and how to inform it to forget this information when a document is closed. Companion articles of this use case deal with the implementation of a visualization interface of your own [1], and with catching visualization notifications [2].

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The CAAVisManager Use Case

CAAVisManager is a set of use cases of the CAAVisualization.edu framework that illustrates Visualization framework capabilities.

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What Does CAAVisManager Do

CAAVisManager contains a series of modules that make up a small MDI (Multiple Document Interface) application dedicated to showing and explaining the role of the visualization manager. The main objects are:

Even if the CATIA application is a bit more complex than this application and involves more objects, those listed here, along with their respective roles and relations, are identical, and are just shown to explain what you should do to work with the unique instance of the visualization manager.

Let's briefly describe them. The application manages two lists: one for the documents, and one for the windows that display these documents. At all times, one of the documents, if any, is active, and is known as such. The application is the parent of the application frame window from the command tree structure standpoint [3], that is in turn the parent of all the document windows. An editor is associated with one and only one document, and is known by the document and by all its windows. A selector is associated with the editor and creates a CATPSO and a CATHSO instances to store pointers to the preselected and selected components respectively. The selector is the parent, again from the command tree structure standpoint, of the CATSelector instance created by the visualization manager for each document. Because of this parent-child relation, the editor selector will receive the notifications affecting the document and coming from the viewers [4] in which it is displayed and passed to the CATSelector instance. In the same way, to get notifications affecting the viewer background, that is, that do not impact the document itself, a CAT3DIndicator instance is created by the document window and is assigned the editor as parent to catch these notifications that otherwise would be lost. The selector should redefine the AnalyseNotification method to catch these notifications [2].

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How to Launch the CAAVisManager

To launch CAAVisManager, you will need to set up the build time environment, then compile the four CAAVisManager modules along with their prerequisites, set up the run time environment, and then execute the use case [5]. You cannot launch CAAVisManager itself. CAAVisManager is simply used by the CAAVisManagerAppli use case. Type CAAVisManagerAppli instead of CAAVisManager to display the interactive application along with a viewer that displays the CAAVisManagerDefaultDocument.

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Where to Find the CAAVisManager Code

CAAVisManager code is located in the CAAVisualization.edu framework:

Windows InstallRootDirectory\CAAVisualization.edu\
Unix InstallRootDirectory/CAAVisualization.edu/

where InstallRootDirectory is the root directory of your CAA V5 installation.

CAAVisManager includes the following modules:

CAAVisManagerAppli.m Contains the interactive application, the windows and the documents
CAAVisManagerComp.m Contains the geometric components to display
CAAVisManagerImp.m Contains the extension classes required to make the geometric components displayable
CAAVisManagerInt.m Contains the interfaces implemented by the geometric components, especially the visualization interface. Their header files are located in the PrivateInterfaces directory

CAAVisManagerAppli.m includes the following classes:

CAAVisManagerApplication Interactive application
CAAVisManagerApplicationFrame Application frame window that hosts the application
CAAVisManagerDocument Base document
CAAVisManagerDefaultDocument Document displayed when launching the use case
CAAVisManagerCGRDocument CGR document
CAAVisManagerWindow Document window
CAAVisManagerEditor Document editor
CAAVisManagerCmdSelector Selector

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Step-by-Step

To use the visualization manager, there are four main steps:

  1. Retrieving the Visualization Manager
  2. Attaching the Visualization Manager to the Main 3D Viewpoint, the HSO and the PSO
  3. Attaching the Visualization Manager to the Main 2D Viewpoint, the HSO and the PSO
  4. Detaching the Visualization Manager

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Retrieving the Visualization Manager

void CAAVisManagerWindow::Attach()
{
  CATVisManager            *pVisuMgr  = CATVisManager::GetVisManager();
  ...

The CATVisManager::GetVisManager static method retrieves a pointer to the visualization manager.

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Attaching the Visualization Manager to the Main 3D Viewpoint, the HSO and the PSO

  ...
  CAAVisManagerDocument    *pDocument = _pEditor->GetDocument();
  CAAVisManagerCmdSelector *pSelector = _pEditor->GetSelector();

  if ( (NULL != pDocument) && (NULL != pDocument->GetRootContainer()) )
  {
    CATBaseUnknown * pRootObject = pDocument->GetRootContainer();
    _pRootObjectPath = new CATPathElement(pRootObject);
  }

  if ( (NULL != _pViewer) && ( NULL!= _pRootObjectPath) )
  {
    CAT3DViewpoint * pMain3DViewpoint = &(_pViewer->GetMain3DViewpoint());

    list<IID> liste_iid_3D;
    liste_iid_3D += new IID(IID_CATI3DGeoVisu);
    pVisuMgr->AttachTo   (_pRootObjectPath,
                          pMain3DViewpoint,
                          liste_iid_3D,
                          pSelector);
    pVisuMgr->AttachHSOTo(_pEditor->GetHSO(), pMain3DViewpoint);
    pVisuMgr->AttachPSOTo(_pEditor->GetPSO(), pMain3DViewpoint);
    delete liste_iid_3D[0];
    ...

The document and the selector associated with the document editor are both retrieved from the editor, and the document root object is retrieved as a CATPathElement instance. Then the main 3D viewpoint of the 3D viewer is retrieved using the GetMain3DViewPoint method. A list of 3D visualization interface IIDs is created and the CATI3DGeoVisu interface IID is added to the list. Then the visualization manager can be attached to the document thanks to the AttachTo method:

Then the visualization manager is attached for highlighted components to the editor's HSO and to the viewer's main 3D viewpoint using the AttachHSOTo method, and attached for prehighlighted components to the editor's PSO and again to the viewer's main 3D viewpoint using the AttachPSOTo method.

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Attaching the Visualization Manager to the 2D Main Viewpoint, the HSO and the PSO

    ...
    CAT2DViewpoint * pMain2DViewpoint = &(_pViewer->GetMain2DViewpoint());

    list<IID> liste_iid_2D;
    liste_iid_2D += new IID(IID_CAAIVis2DGraphVisu);
    pVisuMgr->AttachTo  (_pRootObjectPath,
                         pMain2DViewpoint,
                         liste_iid_2D,
                         pSelector);
    pVisuMgr->AttachHSOTo(_pEditor->GetHSO(), pMain2DViewpoint);
    pVisuMgr->AttachPSOTo(_pEditor->GetPSO(), pMain2DViewpoint);
    delete liste_iid_2D[0];
    ...
  }
}

The main 2D viewpoint of the 3D viewer is retrieved using the GetMain2DViewPoint method. A list of 2D visualization interface IIDs is created and the CAAIVis2DGraphVisu interface IID is added to the list. Then the visualization manager can be attached to the document thanks to the AttachTo method:

Then the visualization manager is attached for highlighted components to the editor's HSO and to the viewer's main 2D viewpoint using the AttachHSOTo method, and attached for prehighlighted components to the editor's PSO and again to the viewer's main 2D viewpoint using the AttachPSOTo method.

The main 2D viewpoint zoom and origin are reset.

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Detaching the Visualization Manager

void CAAVisManagerWindow::Detach()
{
  CATVisManager * pVisuManager = CATVisManager::GetVisManager();

  if ( (NULL != _pViewer) && (NULL != _pRootObjectPath) )
  {
    CAT3DViewpoint * pMain3DViewpoint = &(_pViewer->GetMain3DViewpoint());

    pVisuManager->DetachFrom(_pRootObjectPath, pMain3DViewpoint);
    pVisuManager->DetachHSOFrom(pMain3DViewpoint);
    pVisuManager->DetachPSOFrom(pMain3DViewpoint);

    CAT2DViewpoint * pMain2DViewpoint = &(_pViewer->GetMain2DViewpoint());

    pVisuManager->DetachPSOFrom(pMain2DViewpoint);
    pVisuManager->DetachHSOFrom(pMain2DViewpoint);
    pVisuManager->DetachFrom(_pRootObjectPath, pMain2DViewpoint);
  }
}

The CATVisManager::GetVisManager static method retrieves a pointer to the visualization manager. Then the visualization manager is detached from the document and from the viewer's main 3D viewpoint using the DetachFrom method. Then the visualization manager is detached for highlighted and prehighlighted components from the viewer's main 3D viewpoint using the DetachHSOFrom and DetachPSOFrom methods respectively. The same applies to the main 2D viewpoint.

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In Short

This use case shows how to use the visualization manager to make it aware of the visualization interfaces to call for the document to display in both 3D and 2D viewpoints, and how to make sure that visualization notifications that affect the document can be retrieved, using the AttachTo method of CATVisManager. It shows also how to attach the visualization manager to the document's editor PSO and HSO using the AttachPSOTo and AttachHSOTo methods of CATVisManager respectively. In addition, it shows how to perform the detachments using the DetachFrom, DetachPSOFrom, and DetachHSOFrom methods.

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References

[1] Making a Component Displayable With CATI3DGeoVisu
[2] Catching the Visualization Notifications
[3] The Send/Receive Communication Protocol
[4] Conveying End User Intent from Mouse to Controller
[5] Building and Launching a CAA V5 Use Case
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History

Version: 1 [May 2000] Document created
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Copyright © 2000, Dassault Systèmes. All rights reserved.